Ginoza was fully aware that this was not his best plan. He preferred to make plans with plenty of thought, lots of detail, and usually some sort of pro and con list. But he'd had to act quickly to help Kogami, and if he wanted to continue to help Kogami, he needed to stay exactly where he was.

Ginoza had known as soon as he pulled a gun on the analysts that he would probably not be walking away from this. At least, not as a somewhat free member of society. The usual sentence for taking hostages was (along with a stay in a rehab facility, of course) about twelve years of jail time. Added to that was the three years for accessing classified files without a proper clearance, and Ginoza would be looking at fifteen years.

That was assuming, of course, that his crime coefficient hadn't risen above the lethal eliminator threshold when they came to arrest him, and he wasn't killed on the spot. But Ginoza thought that was unlikely, seeing as how he fully intended to surrender once the Kogami question was resolved. Having been with the MWPSB for years, Ginoza knew that Dominators were usually only used when a suspect was being hostile.

The most probable outcome was simply the jail sentence, and while that was unpleasant, it was…survivable. Ginoza would see Kogami again. Missing fifteen years with him was almost unthinkable, but it was better than losing him entirely.

But Ginoza didn't want to say that outright. Ginoza wasn't sure how much Kogami had guessed, or how much he was even able to understand through the haze of drugs, blood loss, and pain, but he certainly didn't want to admit more than he had to. Surely, Kogami didn't actually think that they were going to be able to have some sort of conversation about Ginoza's actions. He had to know where this was going, because the alternative was making Ginoza sick to think about.

"Gino? Still there?"

Kogami's words were mushy in his mouth, but Ginoza could hear the drug-induced exhaustion even so. He'd probably need to sleep soon.

"Shinya? Yes, I'm here. You're tired, aren't you?"

"Yes," Kogami whispered. Ginoza could hear the faint in and out of his breathing. Ginoza thought he might be about to try to say something else, but the silence stretched on.

"How much water do you have left?" Ginoza finally asked.

Kogami made a faint humming sound, and then Ginoza heard sloshing. "Most of two bottles," he finally said.

"Alright," Ginoza said. "Why don't you have a few sips of water, and then get some sleep."

Kogam made a soft sound. It did not sound pleased.

"You know you need to stay hydrated, Phantom. You've lost a lot of blood."

Kogami sighed painfully. "Alright," he said. "You're right."

Ginoza heard a soft click, presumably as the transponder was set down, and then the sound of Kogami drinking. Ginoza was pleased that Kogami hadn't bothered to argue, but at the same time, it was a little worrying. There was nothing Kogami loved more than a fight, and it was a little strange for him to acquiesce like this, even if Ginoza was the one asking.

"Okay," Kogami said breathlessly. "Drank a few sips."

"Are you going to go to sleep now?" Ginoza asked.

"Yeah. I thin' I need it. Good…goodnight, I guess."

The idea of suddenly not being able to talk to Kogami anymore, not even be able to hear him, filled Ginoza with an unexpected panic. This was the first time Ginoza had been able to speak to him in the better part of a week. Kogami was in a dangerous situation, alone in a foreign country, and badly injured on top of it, and once they hung up, there was honestly no guarantee that Ginoza would be able to connect with Kogami again.

"Wait," Ginoza said. "Can you…could you please leave the transponder on after you go to sleep? So I can…hear you? And I know you're alright?"

"Gino, I'm sorry." There was a soft exhale. "This runs on batteries. Won't be able to last all night. Wouldn't be able to talk to you tomorrow if I left it on."

Ginoza swallowed carefully. "Don't worry about that, Shinya. That sounds logical. It was a silly thing to ask, I just…."

"I'll be fine," Kogami breathed. "Don't worry about me. I'm safe here. And I don' even think I'll sleep very long…."

"I know," Ginoza said. And he really did. Kogami would be alright, because this was the sort of thing he did.

"Night," Kogami whispered. "I'll call you when I wake up. Don't…don' worry too much."

"I won't."

There was a pause, and Ginoza heard Kogami shifting on the other end. "Love you."

The transponder disconnected with a click, and Ginoza was left alone before he could respond. "I love you too," he told the empty air, and he was left sitting with an unpleasant cocktail of fear and embarrassment.

And, although it felt like bad luck to admit it even to himself, an amount of admiration. In Kogami's place, Ginoza wouldn't have been able to survive even long enough to make contact. He couldn't imagine living through the sort of environment that would have resulted in the sorts of skills Kogami had, and he didn't think he'd want to. He just knew that his husband had a much better chance of making it back to him than anyone else Ginoza knew.

Reluctantly, Ginoza closed the call window on his watch. He would talk to Kogami in the morning, which would likely come soon enough. Kogami didn't sleep much at the best of times, and Ginoza couldn't imagine his chronic insomnia would improve when he was deep in enemy territory, injured and alone. Even with the painkillers, Ginoza would probably hear from him in a few hours.

Ginoza wished he could try to get some sleep as well, but he wasn't going to push his luck with the hostages in that way. They might not believe that they were under much of a threat from him, but that didn't mean he was going to trust them to stay in the bathroom while he slept, just because he meant well. He would have to stay awake.

Ginoza stood for the first time since he'd sat in front of the analyst's computer and felt his joints crack unpleasantly. Wincing slightly, he rolled his metal arm a few times, trying to work some feeling back into the areas where it was affixed to his body. It always got sore if he left it in one position for too long, but he'd been too engaged to think of moving around.

Ignoring the ache in his shoulder, Ginoza headed to the next desk over to see if he could find any sort of tea, or coffee, or other source of caffeine. He'd worked his way through half the drawers when he was interrupted by a knock at the door, and the sound of the intercom engaging.

"Hello? Can you let me in?"

Ginoza froze, staring at the door in horror. His mind raced, conjuring scores of faceless government agents, ready to leap in and subdue him at the first opportunity.

The intercom beeped again. "I just need my analysis. No one is answering their emails. I know it's late, but you guys are still in there, right? I've been trying to reach you all day."

Ginoza froze. It wasn't that he'd forgotten that someone might come looking for the analysts. Ginoza had worked with Karanomori long enough to know that analysts spent their whole days getting bothered to do odd jobs, often by people who weren't even in their department. If that had been true for an analyst who also happened to be an enforcer, it would surely be true for analysts who were regular employees too. Ginoza knew he had asked this team for data before just to get things expedited, even though his team did possess a single overworked analyst.

So he had known that eventually, the analysts would be needed for something. At the beginning of this rather ill-advised adventure, that had been very much at the forefront of his mind. But then more and more pressing matters had kept appearing, and it had slowly moved lower and lower on his priority list. He still wouldn't say that it had slipped his mind. But he hadn't exactly put a plan in place for dealing with it.

It took Ginoza a second to locate his own intercom button - the design of this woman's desk was not very ergonomic. But he found it, finally, and pressed it down with a trembling finger, still not exactly sure what he was even going to say.

"I'm afraid none of the analysts are currently available," Ginoza said.

"What?" the voice said. It was male, definitely. Even through the fuzzy speaker, Ginoza thought he might have sounded vaguely familiar - it may have been someone he had worked with before.

"No one is available right now. I'm afraid you'll have to wait."

"That's…not possible. Let me in there."

"It is very possible, I'm afraid," Ginoza said. "You'll have to return later."

"What are they all working on?" the voice said.

"It's a special rush job for my department. It's complex and very high-priority, so none of them will be able to take on any additional jobs until this work is complete. I do apologize for the inconvenience."

"Who are you?"

Ginoza thought briefly about lying, but doubted he could do it convincingly. His identity would be found out at some point regardless of what he said now. "I'm Nobuchika Ginoza, a Special Investigator with the Suppressing Action Department. And before you ask, the work currently being done for me is extremely confidential with a high level of clearance, so I'm not going to be able to answer any additional questions about it."

Ginoza removed his finger from the intercom, thought for a few seconds in the silence, and pressed the button again. "If you leave me your name and your email, I'll ensure that they reach out to you as soon as they're available."

"O-okay?"

He sounded suspicious, but confused enough that Ginoza was fairly sure he'd already won - at least for now. He supposed what Kogami always said was true, and if you acted like no one could stop you, no one usually tried. Ginoza usually tried not to listen too hard to that sort of thing, since it was completely counter to the way their society worked. But just this once, it was coming in handy.

The man on the other end of the intercom related his name and his email, and then presumably left. As Ginoza had suspected, both sounded vaguely familiar, and he assumed that the man recognized him as well. Hopefully, that would make him wait longer before alerting someone higher up the chain of command to the situation.

Ginoza waited until he was sure that the man was gone before letting out a shuddering breath and putting his head in his hands. Carefully, he massaged his temples with the metal fingers, knowing from experience that the right amount of pressure could help banish the fast-approaching stress headache. He'd bought himself some time, but he didn't know how much. He supposed that he would just have to wait and see.

The night passed agonizingly slowly. Ginoza spent the first few hours doing further research on the situation in EENA, eyes constantly drawn to his watch even though he knew it would buzz if Kogami called.

But after a while, Ginoza felt his eyelids drooping, and he was forced to go back to the search for caffeine that the intercom had aborted. He managed to find a few unrefrigerated cans of the cold brew that Kogami liked, and Ginoza hated. He cracked one open and drank it, wincing at both the taste and the bittersweet thought of Kogami laughing at his expression. Unlike the coffee, which was simply bitter.

Ginoza ended up rereading Kogami's file, just to stay awake. He already knew most of what it contained, obviously, but any spare piece of information could potentially help. Besides, he didn't want to access any files other than the ones that he had to.

By the time he was done with that, he was getting pretty worried that he hadn't heard from Kogami. It had been early evening when Ginoza had pulled his stunt with the gun, and now daylight was once again starting to filter in through the window on the opposite side of the office.

EENA wasn't in the same time zone as Japan, so it would still be quite early there, but functionally that didn't matter. The point was that Kogami had gone to bed very early, and at this point - assuming he was still asleep and hadn't somehow forgotten to contact Ginoza - he had slept for more hours than Ginoza had ever known him to before.

That was…worrying. Somehow, the best case scenario was that he'd woken up and hadn't called Ginoza. The more likely answer was that he was so sick and injured that he had slept for…going on nine hours now, which was far too long for Kogami. Too long for anyone who was in a life or death situation like this one, really. And for Kogami specifically, anything over six hours was really quite strange - he wasn't at all prone to sleeping long stretches.

There was a small part of Ginoza, that he was working very hard to tamp down, that was worried that Kogami had died. It was possible. He'd been very badly injured the last time Ginoza had spoken to him. People died in their sleep sometimes, and it seemed to be an especially likely thing to happen if the person in question was very badly injured, and didn't have access to medical care.

But Ginoza knew he was prone to overthinking. If Kogami had been there, he probably would have been able to tell by the look on Ginoza's face, and he would have told Ginoza to stop. Since Kogami wasn't there, Ginoza would just have to do that himself.

So he worked very hard to put Kogami out of his mind, which worked for about ten minutes. Then, the image of Kogami's dead body floated up unwanted in Ginoza's mind, and Ginoza had to swallow hard to rid himself of a sour taste at the back of his mouth.

Maybe Ginoza should call him. Kogami would probably be worried to realize he'd been left unguarded for this long anyways - he'd probably be grateful to Ginoza for waking him up.

The need to contact Kogami was so big that it felt almost out of Ginoza's control. No sooner had the thought that he should wake Kogami crossed Ginoza's mind then he was reaching for the dial pad. Trying to resist was like trying to resist the need to breathe - maybe he could have held out for a little while, but not for very long.

He called Kogami. His watch "rang" for a while, much longer than Ginoza wanted. That was unlike Kogami too - he always woke up at the slightest sound, another thing that made it almost impossible for him to sleep for nine hours straight.

Ginoza had started to worry that Kogami wouldn't answer after the first ring, and by the time the transponder clicked on, he was almost too frantic to notice.

"Mmm…wha'?" Kogami's voice, soft and nearly unintelligible.

Ginoza tried to ignore the sudden sinking in his stomach and told himself Kogami could just be fogged with sleep. "Shinya? I'm…I'm sorry to wake you."

There was a long silence from the other end, far too long for the usually lightning-quick Kogami. "...Wake me? Was I…?"

"Asleep," Ginoza filled in, nervously fiddling with the pens on the desk in front of him. "It's been nine hours."

Another silence. "Shit. That's pretty long."

"Yes," Ginoza said uselessly, mostly to cover up the anxiety that was working its way through him.

Kogami was sick. Ginoza had half-guessed that as soon as he'd slept so long, and it had been confirmed as soon as Kogami started talking. The painkillers Ginoza had made him take before he'd gone to sleep would have worn off long since, and pain made Kogami sharp, rather than foggy.

Ginoza swallowed hard and hoped uselessly that Kogami was just fighting off something brought on by blood loss and exertion, rather than an infection. He hoped that if he gave Kogami time, once he woke up properly, he wouldn't sound so sick. Because if Kogami really was sick, their chances of reuniting had just plummeted all over again.